


forget to hit the ground

by Anonymous



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Coming Out, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Rated T for a little swearing, Trans Character, incompetent courting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25516828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Am I? Your dear?” she asked. Her eyes were clear and bright, and Yuri felt the weight of her attention.(Kinkmeme fill for the anon who requested fluff, getting together, and coming out as trans)
Relationships: Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23
Collections: Anonymous, FE3H Kink Meme





	forget to hit the ground

“Hey,” Byleth greeted. She was lying in one of the old Ashen Wolves bunks with her hands behind her head, because of course she was. Yuri sighed, took his hand off the hilt of his sword. Of course it was her.

“Hi,” he said. He leaned against a bunk on the opposite wall, crossed his arms. “Why are you here?”

“Sword practice?” she asked. To most people, she might have sounded neutral, but Yuri was something of an expert, and to his practiced ear, she sounded hopeful.

“You’re on,” he said and didn’t bother to suppress his smile.

Some time later, they were panting and sweaty on the training room floor. Yuri felt _excellent,_ his blood still humming fiercely in his veins, and his muscles burning pleasantly. Byleth was sprawled out next to him, regaining her breath. Yuri’s eyes were trained on the clouds overhead, streaked with pink and orange as the sun set, but he couldn’t help but notice that certain… parts of Byleth’s anatomy moved as she caught her breath. Ahem. He fixed his eyes more firmly on the spire of a nearby building, one that coincidentally happened to be on the opposite side of him from his friend.

“Dinner?” Byleth offered. 

“Great,” Yuri said. He heard the sound of her rolling to her feet, and her hand appeared in his field of vision shortly thereafter. He couldn’t help but notice that her thighs and bosom seemed especially prominent from this angle. Oh, so it was going to be one of _those_ times. Lovely. He accepted her hand up (it was warm, and calloused, and strong, and Yuri was—losing his _mind_ ), busied himself with putting away their training weapons, and (when he was _certain_ his face was no longer red) followed her to the dining hall. 

“But think about it, it would work,” Byleth was insisting. Yuri couldn’t stop laughing, which was, honestly, embarrassing. It wasn’t just the absurdity of her proposal, but the earnestness of her voice and her extremely serious expression (stonefaced, except for the glint of mischief in her eye. Yuri lo—liked that glint, he really did) that was killing him. “The icicle would melt, there would be nothing to connect you to the crime.” 

Yuri laughed so hard he actually, physically, choked. Byleth stopped immediately, her hands hovering next to him. Yuri choked some more and was not sure if he was alarmed or… not at the prospect of her, possibly, patting him on the back.

She patted him on the back. He choked harder. She ended up wrapping her arm around him and guiding against a wall, where she helped him sit on the ground.

Somehow, when Yuri was on sitting on the ground, staring up at the night sky and wheezing, she didn’t bother to unwrap her arm from around him. It was very—distracting. Her hand was hot where it rested on his upper arm, and her body was line of warmth along his side, and her chest was soft where it brushed against him. Yuri was very, very distracted. Goddess, he was honestly, well and truly, losing his mind.

“You okay?” she asked, peering at him. Yuri meant to keep his eyes pinned to the heavens, but he couldn’t stop them from drifting down, to be caught by her strangely colored eyes. An outsider might not see it, but she was—concerned, and amused, and pleased, and, and fond. Shit. This was why Yuri hadn’t meant to look at her. Uncontrollable laughter begat a peculiar giddiness, and that bright, spinning, out-of-control feeling itself was both delightful and dangerous.

She was very close. Goddess, she was so close. The giddy whirlwind had escaped the chamber of his heart, was spinning wildly in his whole ribcage, had tangled the air of his lungs in its gleeful rush. 

Yuri held his breath as he leaned forward.

Her lips were so soft. Her breath on his skin was so soft. Her hand, as it moved to brush his hair back from his face was impossibly, devastatingly soft. He was a hardened crime lord, and she was a hardened mercenary, each of them with blood in their pasts and steel in their future, but this thing between them was overwhelmingly, calamitously soft.

His eyes slipped shut as she kissed him. He hadn’t meant to. Normally, when Yuri Leclerc kissed a person, he preferred to keep his eyes open—the better to appreciate their beauty, he would say if they asked, but really because only a fool took his eyes off any potential threat. But Byleth kissed him so gently and so slowly that he had to close his eyes. To witness someone perform an act so tenderly—even if he himself was a participant—was unthinkable. 

The kissing continued—always soft, never rushed, but also very, very thorough—until Yuri was panting. He finally forced himself to stop getting lost in her kisses just in time to realize that, she, too was breathing heavily, and it was doing delightful things to her already-delightful bosom. Welp.

“Well that was unexpected,” Yuri said gracelessly. Byleth huffed a silent laugh. 

“Was it really?” she asked, touching her forehead to his.

“Maybe only a little,” he admitted. He looped his arms around her shoulders, drew her in for another kiss.

“I asked you to tea every other day,” Byleth said when they paused for breath. She was sitting closer, somehow, practically in his lap. “I bought you a _sword._ ”

“You buy all our weapons. It drives the quartermaster crazy,” Yuri pointed out.

“Yours is custom,” Byleth said.

“It’s what?”

“It’s forged-to-order,” Byleth said. The barely-there expression she was wearing now was that of surprise. “I thought you knew. You said it fit your hand better than any other.” It did, almost like it was made for—Goddess and all the Saints have mercy.

“That didn’t mean I—what do you _mean,_ ‘forged-to-order?’”

“I can’t believe that didn’t work,” Byleth mumbled, almost inaudible. 

“You were courting me?” Yuri asked, somewhere between shocked and delighted. 

“I made a sword for you,” Byleth complained, but she was still leaning into his touch. “I served your favorite tea. I baked cookies.”

“You serve everyone’s favorite tea. Everyone knows you take notes about it,” Yuri said. “And when did you bake cookies?”

“Only for the last month,” Byleth said. “Mercedes taught me.”

“You never said anything.”

“You didn’t notice the cookies got a lot uglier?” 

“Well,” yes, actually, he had, but, “I thought you were going to a different baker, or the kitchen had a new apprentice.” Byleth dropped her face to his shoulder and mumbled. “What was that?”

“I gave you a sword.” 

“Who told you to use weaponry as a, a courting gift?” Even the phrase made him blush, good thing she was hiding her own face against him. “Was it Felix?” Seemed like a very Felix thing to do. She mumbled something and squished closer to him, which was distracting but not distracting enough. “What?”

“It was Dimitri,” she repeated. Yuri couldn’t help it; he laughed. That same giddiness from before came flooding back with a vengeance. It filled his whole body this time, fizzing and popping like minute bubbles, making him lighter than mere human flesh. Several times he thought he’d laughed himself out, only to catch sight of Byleth’s face—rueful, amused, and so, so fond—and start laughing again.

“My dear, Dimitri is the last person you should take personal advice from,” he managed eventually. Her expression shifted, all hint of sheepishness disappearing, before he knew what to make of it. She placed one callused hand over his own.

“Am I? Your dear?” she asked. Her eyes were clear and bright, and Yuri felt the weight of her attention. 

Abruptly, more abruptly than it appeared, the bubbly feeling drained away. He still felt happy, almost unbelievably so, but the weight of his body was all his again. He wanted very badly to trust in the, the fondness she had for him—she’d made cookies _and_ swords, apparently—to throw himself at her and let her catch him, but his natural wariness was reasserting itself. It was the same instinct that that made him reach for his sword even when his brain expected that the person in the Ashen Wolves’ bunk was his friend. Better safe than sorry. A bone-deep instinct for self-preservation warned that it was dangerous to let those intoxicating bubbles carry him too high. If he was going to fall, better to do it here and now than later, when it would hurt more. 

“You are,” he said. His voice was rough. “I care very much for you.” She smiled, small but genuine, but her own animal awareness must have been at work too. She leaned out of his space, looked at him with almost-imperceptible concern. Yuri took her hand in both of his. “There is something I want to tell you.”

He led her back down to the Abyss. The surface was too exposed, and that went double for sitting on a random stretch of ground next to a random monastery building. What a place to be kissed.

Anyway.

Yuri knew the Abyss better than the back of his own hand. He knew the bolt holes, the dead ends, and the hidden nooks and crannies. Suffice to say, it was easy for him to locate a private place to talk.

“Yuri? Are you okay?” Byleth had asked as he led her here. He’d only told her to be patient, and she had been silent thereafter, following easily. 

He sat her on an old crate. Standing in front of her, he sighed, crossed his arms, uncrossed them, sighed again. 

“This might make you think differently of me,” he said at last. She held her tongue, looked at him attentively. He sighed, crossed his arms, uncrossed them, touched the hilt of his sword, made his hands hang loosely at his sides. “I am a man, but when I was born, I was believed to be a girl.”

“Wh—” Byleth started to ask, cut herself off before she finished asking the question. Yuri resisted the urge to cross his arms again, couldn’t quite control whatever his face was doing. It was extremely likely that he was frowning. “Oh. You. Um. The midwife…?”

“Was very experienced, and had a reasonable basis for her misunderstanding,” Yuri said evenly. He watched her think. He watched, yes, her eyes flick from his face to his hair, down his body, up his body, back to his face. Because he was watching her so intently, he also saw her eyes flick from his hand to his sword and back to his face. He hadn’t even drawn on her, but he—was fond of her, and trusted her. But she was a former mercenary, and wariness had its own life in her too.

“Oh. Yuri,” she said. She bit her lip, which under other circumstances would probably have been profoundly distracting. “I think I understand.”

“Really,” Yuri said, and possibly it came out a little flatter and unencouraging than it might have. 

“Yes, actually,” she said, and looked him in the eye. “When I was born, everyone thought I was a boy.” 

Yuri looked at her. 

“Really?” he finally said. She laughed in disbelief, nodded. “ _Really?_ ” She nodded more emphatically, covered her mouth as another laugh tried to force its way out. “Well. I didn’t see that coming.”

“I, I didn’t either,” she managed. She patted the crate next to her, and he took the invitation. When he was seated, she put her hand over his again. He intertwined their fingers. Her eyes were bright as she looked at him. “So now what?”

“Well, I told you what I wanted to tell you, and you…”

“Surprised you, apparently. That doesn’t happen often,” she interrupted. 

“...Are still interested?” Yuri finished. “In us?” She raised their joined hands, kissed his fingers. Her eyes were warm.

“Very,” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt: https://3houseskinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1608.html?thread=2237256#cmt2237256  
> I don't think I quite fulfilled the requester's wishes, but an attempt was made.  
> \--  
> Title refers to the Hitchhiker's Guide advice on flying: throw yourself at the ground--and miss


End file.
